When I moved to the Åland Islands at twenty-five, I found myself in a completely different world. Set in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland, the islands took me straight from art school into a landscape where snow, wind and sea shape the winter, and nature makes no pretence.

I was far from home, from my family and everything I knew. And there, among the rocks and forests, I discovered blackberries one day. The same ones I remembered from childhood and our cottage in the Železné hory hills. In that moment, two distant worlds unexpectedly came together.

A bramble is no delicate plant. It has thorns, spreads over everything around it, and is not easily deterred. It can take root where other plants have no chance. That resilience inspired me to create the Berries collection. I wanted to capture it in jewellery, so that a blackberry could be more than an ornament — a small reminder of our own strength.

The Berries collection began when I moved to Scandinavia for love. Thirteen years later, after my divorce and return to the Czech Republic, I created the Sama sobě… ring. One piece of jewellery at the beginning, another at the end of my Scandinavian chapter. And a whole stretch of my life in between.

But Berries stayed with me. The pieces I created back then are still part of my life today. And just like brambles that can take root again even in an inhospitable landscape, I too had to learn to start over.

That is what I hope to pass on to every woman who wears one of these pieces. A little of the resilience we all carry within us, even when we sometimes forget it.